[FASHION REVIEW] Brandy Melville makes cute clothing inaccessible

Catherine Hooley, Staff Writer|February 20, 2020

Fair Use Image: Brandy Melville USA (https://www.brandymelvilleusa.com/)

The Brandy Melville features a wide variety of clothing, but all of the models can be identified as a size small.

Brandy Melville is one of the most popular brands for teens girls across the United States, but does it deserve all the attention it is getting, or should we all move on from the toxic brand? 

Most of the stores are located in California and on the East Coast, but none are in Minnesota, although stores like Pacsun and Nordstrom do carry some of their clothes. The brand is notoriously known as “basic” which means there is a lack of uniqueness to their clothes because they usually only follow the current trends or mainstream styles of the time. 

The quality of their clothing is relatively good. The brand’s shirts are comfortable and breathable and their sweatpants are the perfect, soft material on the inside. The products least recommendable from this store would be their denim bottoms. Denim is hard to perfect if there is only one size of the product, so the proportions of their jeans or jeans shorts are usually off from the standard body type. Otherwise, their shirts are 100% cotton, which makes for a very breathable, soft product. 

The price of their brand is pretty fair because it is mostly less than $30 for a top and most bottoms are in the $30 range. Their clothes are made in Italy in good conditions and it is not a sweatshop, which rationalizes the prices. 

Brandy Melville clothing only comes in one size: a women’s extra small. They’ve undergone scandals because of the one-size-fits-all clothing. Many people say they don’t support the brand because of this and the company’s reputation has taken a few hits because of their sizing. Despite this, they continue to keep their clothing one-size-fits-all. 

However, their so-called one-size-fits-all clothing does not fit all and is primarily targeted towards a skinnier demographic. This lack of sizes causes an exclusion to the customers; it begins to feel like girls aren’t thin enough for the company if they aren’t an extra small. Others see it as inclusion for women of smaller sizes. 

Because the biggest selection is online and that is where most people prefer to order from in Minnesota, there is shipping that has to be accounted for. They say the product should ship within 5-10 days, but it often takes longer. When I ordered, the order was messed up, so it took longer than anticipated. Extra-fast shipping is an option too, but it will add on to the cost.

Overall, Brandy Melville is a good quality brand that I would recommend for basic staples in someone’s closet, but there is a wide selection of brands with multiples sizes that carry clothes that are just as cute. Knowing that this brand is excluding a wide variety of people in their products, brings up a feeling of discomfort representing their clothing and I think many brands are overall better than Brandy Melville.